‘Foragers’ Review: Grassroots Filmmaking in More Ways Than One
variety.comAlissa Simon Film CriticFunded by multiple arts organizations, the hybrid documentary “Foragers” from the Berlin-based Palestinian sculptor and filmmaker Jumana Manna investigates the age-old Palestinian practice of gathering wild edibles such as the herb za’atar and the delicacy ‘akkoub, a thistle-like plant with medicinal properties, and how these traditions conflict with Israeli nature conservation laws that essentially criminalize the Palestinian herb-picking culture.
Including some unexpected humor, Manna’s gentle approach is more poetic meditation than commercial nonfiction. “Foragers” has already been exhibited as an installation at California’s Berkeley Museum of Art, one of the commissioning funders.
It should be welcome at other museums and media centers. Israel declared wild za’atar a protected species in 1977. Manna uses archival footage to show that shortly thereafter a kibbutz in the Galilee started cultivating the herb and selling it back to Palestinians, as well as exporting it to Arab countries, using packaging to make it appear as a Palestinian product.
Meanwhile, ‘akkoub landed on the protection list nearly 30 years later. Her interviewees maintain that is only because Arabs like it very much.With foraging most common in the hills of east Jerusalem, the Galilee and Golan Heights, the film boasts some beautiful landscape shots.
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